HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.
HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful
organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments--a very pretty
fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal
belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in
the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric
fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling--tender
or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the
successive stages of elaboration through which a caviare sandwich is
transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the
marvellous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into
religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility--these
things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him
expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also, my monograph on "The
Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal
Gases Freed in Digestion"--4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work entitled,
I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (John Camden Hotten, London, 1873) this
view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration and support in
the author's account of an experiment made with a view to testing it.
The stomach of a man who had died of a surfeit of turkey on Thanksgiving
Day was removed and kept tightly closed until it was greatly distended
with the gases produced by digestion. The compression on the neck of
it being then relaxed, the words, "Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!" were heard with distinct articulation, as the swollen organ
collapsed. It is nonsense to ignore, belittle, pervert or deny the
significance of a fact like that. For further light upon this subject,
consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on "Love as a product of
Alimentary Maceration."
HEAT, n.
Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode
Of motion, but I know now how he's proving
His point; but this I know--hot words bestowed
With skill will set the human fist a-moving,
And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
Trust an eye-witness--I've been there, my child.
Gorton Swope.
HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something
that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison, of the
California State University, Hebrews are heathens.
"The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison.
He 's
A Christian philosopher. I'm
A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,
Addicted too much to the crime
Of religious discussion in rhyme.
Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree
On a modus vivendi--not they!--
Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,
And I have n't been built in a way
To joy in the thick of the fray.
For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,
And the truth of it I aver:
Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,
An 'ite, an 'ic, and an 'er And I 'm down upon him or her!
Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin
Toleration--that's all very well,
But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,
And he's running--I know by the smell--
A secret, particular hell!
Bissell Gip.
HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk
of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
expound your own.
HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether
superior creation.
HELPMATE, n. A wife, or bitter half.
"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"
Says the priest. "Since the time o' yer wooin'
She 's niver assisted in what ye were at--
For it 's naught ye are ever doin'."
"That 's true of yer Riverence," Patrick replies,
And no sign of contrition evinces;
"But, bedad, it 's a fact which the word implies,
For she helps to mate the expinses!"
Marley Wottel.
HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear
which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and
prevents the wearer from taking cold.
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
HERS, pron. His.
HIBERNATE, v. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There
have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various
animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter
and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it
comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try
twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in
England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the
winter months in the mud at the bottoms of the brooks, clinging together
in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up
the custom on account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Escobius
discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernated.
By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been
originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a
religious significance; but this view is strenuously opposed by that
eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who does not wish any honors denied to
the memory of the Founder of his family.
HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half
griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half
eagle. The hippogriff was therefore one quarter eagle, which is two
dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of natural history is full of
surprises.
HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.
HISTORY, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly
fools.
Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown
'T is nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 't were
known,
Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.
Solder Bupp.
HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and
serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the
hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the
delicacy of its habits, the beauty of its plumage, and the melody of its
voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; a cage
of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at
once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr.
Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right
of resemblance.
HOMOEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.
HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and
Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior,
for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases and they can not.
HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four
kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy,
but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by
one kind or another--the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs,
capacities, and conditions of the congregation.
So skilled the parson was in homiletics
That all his moral purges and emetics
To medicine the spirit were compounded
With a most just discrimination, founded
Upon a rigorous examination
Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
His scriptural specifics this physician
Administered--his pills so efficacious
And pukes of disposition so vivacious
That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
But Slander's tongue--itself all coated--uttered
Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
That in the case of patients having money
The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.
Biography of Bishop Potter,
HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In
legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable;
as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
Delicious Hope! when naught to man is left--
Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;
When even his dog deserts him, and his goat
With tranquil disaffection chews his coat
While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,
The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,
Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint
The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.
Fogarty Weffing.
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to lodge and feed certain
persons who are not in want of food and lodging.
HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the
earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classed as active and passive; as
(respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that
which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.
HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make
things cheery for the good musselman, whose belief in her existence
marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient esteem.
HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat,
mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal
service, and for the detention of appropriations and offenders. House
of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a
pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing
by and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly person of the
opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously
unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.
HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.
HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
Twaddle had a hovel,
Twiddle had a palace;
Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
Or he 'll think I bear him malice
A sentiment as novel
As a chimney on a chalice.
Down upon the middle
Of his legs fell Twaddle
And astonished Mr. Twiddle,
Who began to lift his noddle,
Feed upon the fiddle Faddle flummery, unswaddle
A new-born self-sufficiency and thine himself
a model.